Sulla disobeyed the mandate, and marched to Rome with his army—little more than a body of mercenaries devoted to him. In his eyes, the sovereign Roman citizens were a rabble, and Rome itself a city without a garrison. Sulla had an army of thirty-five thousand men, and before the Romans could organize resistance he appeared at the gate, and crossed the sacred boundary which the law had forbidden war to enter. In a few hours Sulla was the absolute master of Rome. Marius and Sulpicius fled. It was the conservative party which exchanged the bludgeon for the sword. Sulla at once made null the Sulpician laws, punished their author and his adherents, as Sulpicius had feared. The gray-haired conqueror of the Cimbri fled, and found his way to the coast and embarked on a trading-vessel, but the timid mariners put him ashore, and Marius stole along the beach with his pursuers in the rear. He was found in a marsh concealed in reeds and mud, seized and imprisoned by the people of Minturnæ, and a Cimbrian slave was sent to put him to death, The ax, however, fell from his hands when the old hero demanded in a stern voice if he dared to kill Gaius Marius. The magistrates of the town, ashamed, then loosed his fetters, gave him a vessel, and sent him to Ænaria (Ischia). There, in those waters, the proscribed met, and escaped to Numidia, and Sulla was spared the odium of putting to death his old commander, who had delivered Rome from the Cimbrians.
Sullan constitution.
Sulla, master of Rome, did not destroy her liberties. He suggested a new series of legislative enactments in the interests of the aristocracy. He created three hundred new senators, and brought back the old Servian rule of voting in the Comitia Centuriata. The poorer classes [pg 511] were thus virtually again disfranchised. He also abolished the power of the tribune to propose laws to the people, and the initiatory of legislation was submitted to the Senate. The absurd custom by which a consul, prætor, or tribune, could propose to the burgesses any measure he pleased, and carry it without debate, was in itself enough to overturn any constitution.
Having settled these difficulties, and made way with his enemies, Sulla, still consul, embarked with his legion for the East, where the presence of a Roman army was imperatively needed. But before he left, he extorted a solemn oath from Cinna, consul elect, that he would attempt no alteration in the recent changes which had been made. Cinna took the oath, but Sulla had scarcely left before he created new disturbances.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE MITHRIDATIC AND CIVIL WARS.—MARIUS AND SULLA.
There reigned at this time in Pontus, the northeastern State of Asia Minor, bordered on the south by Cappadocia, on the east by Armenia, and the north by the Euxine, a powerful prince, Mithridates VI., surnamed Eupator, who traced an unbroken lineage to Darius, the son of the Hystaspes, and also to the Seleucidæ. He was a great eastern hero, whose deeds excited the admiration of his age. He could, on foot, overtake the swiftest deer; he accomplished journeys on horseback of one hundred and twenty miles a day; he drove sixteen horses in hand at the chariot races; he never missed his aim in hunting; he drank his boon companions under the table; he had as many mistresses as Solomon; he was fond of music and poetry; he collected precious works of art; he had philosophers and poets in his train; he was the greatest jester and wit of his court. His activity was boundless; he learned the antidotes for all poisons; he administered justice in twenty-two languages; and yet he was coarse, tyrannical, cruel, superstitious, and unscrupulous. Such was this extraordinary man who led the great reaction of the Asiatics against the Occidentals.
Mithridates.